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a surprise at the launch of PS5?

The first three hours spent in the company of Godfall were under the banner of the unexpected and the surprise. The game, published by Gearbox Software and developed by Counterplay Games – a new team made up of former developers of God of War, Ratchet & Clank, Horizon Zero Dawn and Gears 5 – hit the scene last spring as the first concretely associated project. to PlayStation 5.

Since that moment, Godfall has appeared several times by binding to the Sony console, only to be launched immediately on PC and likely also on Xbox Series X from mid-2021. Paradoxically, every time the game showed up it seemed less and less interesting: never really in focus, incredibly tacky to look at, bland and not at all next-gen in dynamics. In short, I was ready to classic title that takes advantage of the generational leap to get some visibility, covering the little underlying inspiration with a meaningless mass of effects fired at a thousand.

So so to see …

What I instead found myself in front of was, at least at first, a much better product than expected. Mind you, some of the critical issues associated with the project continue to exist. The aesthetic was and remains ungracefully baroque, excessive, inelegant. Everything in Godfall exceeds, without particular taste or sense of proportion.

The armours of the protagonists are full of tinsel, lights, elements here and there: a textbook triumph of the concept of overdesign. The same goes for reflections or lighting effects: since the console hardware can handle them effortlessly, the idea of ​​the developers was simply to push everything to the limit. So regardless. And the same goes for a plot that takes itself damn seriously, but without the slightest bite.

The result, rather than arousing sincere wonder, ends up being that of the proverbial too much that is too bad. Because Godfall is not necessarily a bad game, on the contrary it proves capable of giving pretty good glimpses and choreographic moments, primarily thanks to the convincing animations that emphasize the heaviness of the fighting. If anything, Godfall is indeed a bit of a boor product, which always flaunts beyond the limit, even where there would be no need. A kind of impromptu upstart in next-gen sauce, just to understand.

… but interesting to play

There is however a big “ma“to keep in mind, which is the reason why Counterplay Games’ debut work actually told me something.

DualSense in hand, Godfall lets himself be played which is a pleasure. The action is engaging, tasty, with an air of guilty pleasure to which it is right not to say no. The combat system is much less trivial than expected, and indeed reserves more than a few surprises. In terms of controls, the setting is exactly that of the Souls (by the way, don’t miss ours Demon’s Souls remake video preview): R1 and R2 associated with light and heavy attacks, L1 to raise the shield, L2 to deflect opposing blows, Square to heal. The Cross serves to dodge in place of the traditional Circle, but the inspiration from From Software’s formula is clear. All this in spite of a more purely action reactivity, with a speed in duels that is much more thrust than the strategic waiting game of the Souls – all the more so by virtue of the absence of the stamina bar.

There is also a damage mechanic borrowed from Bloodborne: if in Miyazaki’s masterpiece part of the lost energy could be restored by attacking, here hitting the enemies with the basic attack “virtually” removes a portion of life which is then effectively removed once a heavy hit is landed. The effect is that of a multifaceted and not at all trivial combat system, which amuses even in the light of the five different types of weapons (always and in any case sidearms, with however the double blades that behave very differently from hammers or spears).

Note a nuance that I believe was not captured at all by the various trailers or gameplay clips shown in the past few months: Godfall isn’t your classic third-person action, but a title that recovers some nuances from shooters. The inspiration is undeniably that of the last appearance of Kratos, which I myself had at the time defined as one speciale sul combat system di God of War like the first of the “aim’n’slash”.

The dot always present in the center of the screen is more than ever indicative of this drift: a real viewfinder that serves to indicate the target of your assaults, making the use of the lock on important and giving a rather original character to the clashes.

DualSense effect (and more)

If we add to all this an emphasis on the loot that could trigger a certain taste for replayability – Counterplay Games has, moreover, described its creature as an unprecedented “looter slasher” – and a convincing support for the exclusive features of DualSense and a system of RPG-style character growth, you understand why Godfall took me and others of the Everyeye editorial team by surprise.

Of course, it remains to be discovered how intriguing the offer is in the medium to long term, how varied and deep the game system can be and how exciting the endgame is. Especially considering the price of 80 €, an obstacle to keep in mind.

However, it would be intellectually dishonest not to share with you the unexpected good feelings that the first contact with Godfall brought with it: slaughtering hosts of monsters (with obviously messy and negligible character design) amused me much more than I expected, with an action. made even more evocative by the PS5 controller.

The DualSense has in fact been used by the developers with intelligence and great effectiveness: the haptic feedback allows you to feel the direction of your shots, while the adaptive triggers underline the release of powerful bursts of energy at the end of devastating combos. And, at least for these first few hours, it wasn’t easy to leave the joypad. It is still early to test the quality of the title published by Gearbox Software: we will take a few more days to test it thoroughly and review it as it deserves. However, Godfall does not seem to be the half-announced disaster that many had predicted, and at best PlayStation 5 may have found an unexpected surprise in its launch line-up.

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